Snow on the Desert
by WynterSky
Summary: Itachi replaces Sasuke's memories on the night of the massacre and leaves him to be raised in a Suna orphanage.
1. Prologue

[A/N: Sorry it's taking so long to post this! I started overthinking stuff and got discouraged, but I'll try to work on it more now.]

Prologue:

Itachi carefully shifted Sasuke's sleeping form in his arms as he bounded through the forest. With the heavy genjutsu he was under, the child was almost a dead weight, and feeling heavier and heavier as Itachi continued travelling for hours.

Itachi could not regret what he had done that night, although he could and did grieve over it. While he had respected his family, he could not allow anything to destroy Konoha's delicate and carefully cultivated peace. But still, he had hated the thought of leaving Sasuke to grow up with nothing, or worse than nothing.

It had taken him weeks of research, but he had eventually found a satisfactory solution. That is, if it worked the way he hoped it would.

The forest which covered most of Fire Country and River Country was fading away now, and Itachi knew he was nearing the border of Wind Country. Suna Village would not be far off. Now, if only he could bring himself to go through with his plan…

After vaulting up to the top of the village wall and down into a deserted alleyway, Itachi set Sasuke down and formed the seals to henge into the appearance of a nondescript young woman in a Suna chuunin uniform. He had already removed the Uchiha symbol from the back of Sasuke's shirt, taking care not to leave any evidence behind.

Picking Sasuke up again, he headed toward his final destination—he had chosen this place on another mission, several months before. There really weren't very many options, in any case. Suna didn't have nearly so many orphanages as Konoha, since they had never had a natural disaster on the level of a rampaging Kyuubi.

A harried-looking young woman came to the door as Itachi knocked. "Yes, what is it?" she asked, absently patting the brown hair of the little girl clinging to her apron.

"Yoshiko-san, who're they?" the girl whispered loudly, her eyes big as she stared at Sasuke.  
>"I don't know yet, Akiko-chan," the woman replied. "You go back to bed now."<p>

The little girl scampered away and Itachi knelt to set Sasuke down, slowly releasing the genjutsu he was held under. "I found this child wandering the streets a little while ago," he said. "As far as I can tell from what he would say, his parents are dead."

"Oh…" the woman sighed, kneeling down as Sasuke opened his eyes. Itachi prayed silently that his research really had paid off—he hadn't had a chance to test it before. "What's your name, dear?"

The boy blinked slowly, as if not sure how to answer the question. "Yuki," he said finally. "My name is Yuki."

Itachi sighed, almost saddened at his success, before turning away and vanishing from his brother's life.

[A/N: Yeah, I love amnesia fics way too much...]


	2. Chapter 1

[A/N: The reason this took so long to update was because I replaced my entire first chapter and added a good deal to the outline.]

Chapter 1:

Yuki stirred drowsily as the morning sunlight hit his face, before sitting up and looking around in some bewilderment. He knew he shouldn't be waking up here, but when he tried to think of where he had expected to wake up he didn't come up with anything.

Pushing the covers back, he dropped lightly to the floor and walked over to the window. He had to stand on tiptoe to see over the sill out to the city below. It was a relief to see the familiar, organic domes and towers of Sunagakure.

_Wait a minute,_ said an insistent little voice in his head, _why are those familiar? You've never seen them before._

_Don't be silly,_ another little voice said, _of course they're familiar. You've lived here all your life._

Obviously both little voices could not be true, and as they swirled round and round Yuki's head began to ache. He dropped to his knees and closed his eyes, hoping that if he couldn't see the cityscape anymore then the voices would go away.

He didn't notice when the door opened behind him and jumped with surprise and fright as someone put a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, I'm sorry," a gentle voice said as Yuki turned to see who it was. "I didn't mean to startle you—Yuki-kun, wasn't it?"

Yuki nodded. He thought he had seen the woman before, but he had been so tired and confused last night that he really wasn't sure. She had dusty brown hair, and her eyes were blue like the sky outside. "I'm Fukui Yoshiko, but you can call me Yoshiko-nee-san. Can you tell me what your last name is, Yuki-kun?"

Yuki confidently started to reply, then stopped when he realized that there wasn't anything filling that little space in his mind where his family name was supposed to be. "N-no," he said finally, staring fixedly at the floor and hoping the voices wouldn't start up again and give him another headache.

"Oh. Well, that's all right then," Yoshiko said, although she sounded disappointed. "Do you know where you used to live?"

Standing so he could look out the window again, Yuki pointed at the eastern portion of the _familiar/unfamiliar_ skyline. "I think somewhere over there," he said, leaning out over the sill so he could see a little better. There was a hot breeze blowing off the desert, and he blinked as the wind pushed his bangs into his eyes.

Yoshiko leaned out next to him and looked where he was pointing. "That'll do then, as long as I have something to put in the paperwork."

"Yoshiko-san?" someone else said from the doorway.

"Ah, Eriko-chan," Yoshiko said, walking over to the new speaker, a blonde-haired girl several years older than Yuki was. They talked in low voices, but the room was small enough that Yuki could still understand what was being said even from where he was at the window.

"How is the new addition?" Eriko asked.

"He seems all right," Yoshiko said, "but he doesn't seem to be able to tell me much about himself."

"Strange," Eriko said. "He looks as if he would be old enough to know."

Yuki decided he didn't like people discussing him when he was still in the room. They were talking about him like he was a thing, or a problem for them to deal with, instead of a person. Due to this slight distraction, he missed a little of the conversation.

"Maybe his family fell ill from the fever and he was the only one to pull through," Eriko was saying. "It's happened before, and it would explain why there's something off about him."

"Could be," Yoshiko said. "I'll need to leave you in charge of things later while I take Yuki-kun and the other new children down to be registered in the Academy."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to take him so soon?"

"It's required," Yoshiko said, sounding tired. "He'll wash out before long if he doesn't have what it takes. Are all the other children up by now?" she asked, in a tone that signaled the end of the previous topic.

"Yes," Eriko said immediately. "I'll go see about breakfast," she added, and left.

Yoshiko returned to where Yuki was. "I have to go do some work now," she said. "Do you want to come and meet the other children, or should I have someone bring your food in here?"

Yuki shrugged, not really caring one way or the other. It might be nice to be distracted from how strange everything seemed, but on the other hand his head did still hurt.

"All right then, I'll send your breakfast here. Oh, one last thing," she added. "Do you know how old you are, Yuki-kun?"

"Eight," Yuki said with more assurance than he felt. He didn't want Yoshiko to think there was something wrong with him, and wouldn't he have remembered if he had been sick? Still, he really did at least think he was eight years old. It was the number that had first come to mind when he thought of his age, but he couldn't quite remember any presents or birthday parties from the years before.

Yoshiko patted him gently on the head (Yuki tensed at her touch, but wasn't sure why) and left, closing the door behind her. Sighing, Yuki went back to sit on the bed, pulling his knees up to his chest as he pondered his situation.

He knew his parents were dead; that was what he had told the nice ninja girl who had found him and brought him here. But try as he might, he couldn't think of what they looked like. Once, he almost had a glimpse of a woman with dark hair like him, but only from behind. She might have been anyone, and the little voices hadn't told him who.

The ninja girl had told him not to worry, that everything would be all right now, but did that mean that things had been wrong before? And if they had been wrong, why couldn't he remember what happened?

He hadn't forgotten everything; he knew his name, and how old he was, and a lot of things Yoshiko hadn't thought to ask about, like his favorite picture book or the games he liked to play. But whenever he tried to remember something really important, there was either a blank or a strange prompt from the little voices. It was all well and good to remember something, but Yuki didn't like being told what his memories were.

The breeze from the window blew his bangs into his face again, and Yuki tried to push them behind his ears but they weren't quite long enough to stay. He settled for facing the inside of the room so the wind's effects wouldn't be so strong.

A few minutes later, the door opened and a pigtailed girl, about Yuki's age, peeked in. "Hi!" she chirped, and Yuki flinched at her high voice, even though she sounded friendly. "I brought breakfast. Are you hungry?"

Yuki nodded. He didn't exactly feel like eating, but the voices wouldn't tell him the last time he'd had any food so he probably should have something.

The pigtailed girl turned to pick up a tray before shoving the door the rest of the way open with her shoulder and ducking inside before it could close on her. "Here you go," she said, setting the tray down on the nightstand.

Yuki waited for her to leave again, but instead she perched on the bed next to him. "What's your name?" she asked as Yuki looked at the dishes. There was some kind of meat with a heavily spiced sauce, and a few wedges of flat bread. Yuki had the same sort of _familiar/unfamiliar_ feeling as he had had when he looked out over the city.

The savory smell of the food made Yuki decide that he really was hungry, and he started on one of the pieces of bread as the girl bounced lightly up and down next to him.

"My name's Akiko," the girl continued, fiddling with one of the little gold balls hanging from her hairties. "You're the only one here my age. All the other kids either way older or too little to be any fun. Are you going to tell me what your name is?"

"Yuki," Yuki said before taking a bite of the meat and coughing at the strong flavor. It tasted at the same time familiar, as if he had been wanting some for a long time, and unfamiliar, as if he had never had any before in his life.

He wished the little voices would make up their mind as to whether he belonged here or nowhere at all.

"You'll like it here, Yuki," Akiko said matter-of-factly. "Yoshiko-nee-san's really nice, and we're going to go sign up for the Academy today! Do you want to be a ninja? I do. My daddy was a ninja, but he never came back, and my mommy died so I could be born."

Akiko didn't ask what had happened to Yuki's parents. At least she knew what had become of hers; that would be better than having the little voices telling him that he didn't need to know.

[A/N: Rats, it's kind of short, isn't it? Sorry about that. Hopefully the next chapter will be longer, and my outline for the whole fic has gotten longer, so I think that makes up for it.]


	3. Chapter 2

[A/N: Please alert me if I type the wrong name for 'Yuki'; I'm kind of speedwriting so I might not catch a slip. Hope you like this chapter!]

Chapter 2:

Akiko chattered on for a few minutes more, then left Yuki to finish his breakfast by himself. As soon as she was gone, the little voices started arguing again and Yuki finally pushed the food away and gave up on eating. The voices subsided a bit after that, so Yuki curled up on the bed and closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes, everything was dark. Yuki sat up with a start and realized that he was no longer on the bed. There was a surface beneath him that felt like a gravel road, but he couldn't see the surface, only a black plane. It was as if someone had taken a can of paint and covered over everything that was supposed to be there. All that Yuki could see was a full moon overhead, and he quickly began to feel disoriented in the eerie blankness. He knew he was standing on something, but his eyes didn't have anything to go by to figure out what was level and what wasn't.

"I-is there anyone there?" Yuki called nervously, looking around the strange not-nothingness.

_No,_ one of the little voices said. _There's no one here. There never will be._ The voice sounded sad but very final. Sighing, Yuki sat back down on what he hoped was the ground (he could only tell by feel) and waited for the blackness to go away.

It did, but very differently from how he had hoped. For a second, Yuki thought he heard a noise and turned to look, but before he could react he was surrounded by a wall of crackling flame.

Gasping for breath in the chokingly hot air, Yuki dropped to his knees and screamed, closing his eyes tightly as the flames fell in on him.

"Yuki! Yuki-kun!"

Someone was shaking him. Yuki jerked away from the touch as his eyes snapped open, glancing around fearfully for something to defend himself with before his gaze focused on the person next to the bed. "Yoshiko-nee-san?"

Yoshiko smiled at him comfortingly, but her eyes were worried. "You were having a bad dream, Yuki-kun," she said as she took her hand away. "Do you want to tell me what it was about?"

Yuki shook his head. Yoshiko already thought there was something wrong with him, and if he told her about the voices, she would be certain of it. At least, that was what Yuki thought; he was pretty sure that most kids didn't have voices telling them what to think.

"All right then," Yoshiko said, reaching out to feel his forehead. Yuki tolerated the contact for a second before shaking his head to dislodge her hand. "We're going to go to the Academy now," she continued. "I don't have any new clothes in your size, so you'll just have to wear what you've got." She looked down at Yuki's bare feet with a sigh. "Well, there's nothing I can do about that now. Here, come along."

Taking his hand, Yoshiko led Yuki out of the room and into a hall. Yuki wished she wouldn't pull him so—he was eight years old and quite capable of going where he was told, even if he did have voices in his head—but she didn't let go of his hand even when he tried to twist out of her grip.

The rest of the building was made out of the same adobe structure as the room he had been in, and for that matter all of Suna, Yuki noted. At the end of the hall there was a staircase, which led down to an entryway. Eriko was waiting by the front door with Akiko and another girl a few years older.

Guiding the other two children ahead of her, Yoshiko nodded a farewell to Eriko, opened the front door and stepped out.

Yuki didn't like walking in the city. The sun was far too bright (_as bright as it always is_, one of the voices corrected gently, and Yuki meekly agreed) and when he tried looking at the ground so it wouldn't shine in his eyes the light bounced off the sand and reflected into his eyes anyway.

Even though Yuki didn't think it was that late yet, the day was already very hot, and therefore so was the sand. Before they had gotten more than a few blocks, he was almost walking on tiptoe so that his bare feet would touch the surface of the road as little as possible.

Akiko didn't seem to care how hot it was as she skipped alongside them, her brown pigtails bouncing with every step. She clearly enjoyed being out in the heat and the noise, Yuki thought a little sulkily. The older girl paid little attention to the younger children.

"Right, just around that corner and we're there," Yoshiko said finally, pointing to the left where another road joined the one they were on.

Yuki wasn't sure what he thought of that. He was happy the walk was over, of course, but what would they think of him here? Yoshiko had only asked him a few questions before concluding that something was wrong with him. He would just have to make sure that he answered all the questions they asked him here correctly.

The Sunagakure Ninja Academy was a large, squat building with few windows, surrounded by a fence of wooden posts. A chuunin standing at the gate motioned for Yoshiko and the children to stop as they approached. "Name and business?" she asked in a bored tone.

"Fukui Yoshiko," Yoshiko replied. "I'm bringing the new children from the orphanage to register in the Academy."

"Very good, Fukui-san," the chuunin replied, pushing the gate open and waving them through. "You know where the office is."

…

Yuki and Akiko sat on a bench outside the registration office as Yoshiko and the older girl, whose name was Setsuki, were inside. Akiko fidgeted and bounced and swung her legs back and forth, but Yuki sat motionlessly and tried to think.

He thought he wanted to be a ninja; he had vague images of admiring the people in uniforms who protected the village. It seemed to be expected of all the children in the orphanage, in any case. The parents of a lot of them had probably been ninjas, and Yuki wondered if his family, the one he didn't know anything about, even though he ought to, had been ninjas.

_"Hey, hey, won't you come throw shuriken with me?"_

Yuki could remember that. He had been standing just inside the house, holding a brand-new weapons belt, and delighted with the thought of becoming a real ninja.

He could remember what he had said, but for the life of him he couldn't remember who he had said it to.

Whoever it was, they couldn't have been that important, anyway. They were gone, that was all that mattered.

A welcome interruption from these gloomy thoughts came when the door opened and Setsuki exited the office. "You can go in now," she said, waiting for Yuki and Akiko to stand before taking their place on the bench.

The office was a simple room, just big enough for a desk and some chairs and a filing cabinet. There was a small electric fan on top of the filing cabinet, but even though it was at its highest speed it wasn't doing much more than pushing the hot air around. Unlike the rooms in the orphanage, the walls of the office were covered with wood panels.

Another chuunin was sitting behind the desk, and smiled as they came in. "And who might these be, Fukui-san?" she asked.

"This is Wakahisa Akiko, Himura-san," Yoshiko said, sitting Akiko down in one of the chairs in front of the desk, "and this is Yuki," she added as Yuki seated himself in the other chair.

"Just Yuki?" Himura asked, raising her eyebrows. They were nearly hidden by her forehead protector when she did so.

"Just Yuki."

Yuki bit his lower lip so he wouldn't say anything (even though he wouldn't have known what to say anyway). Why couldn't he have a family name? Then at least he would know that he had belonged somewhere, not just suddenly appeared here.

"Yuki-kun, Himura-san asked a question."

Yuki jumped guiltily, frustrated with himself for not paying better attention. He'd been trying so hard not to make her think that something was wrong with him and now she was sure to think that anyway. "I'm sorry, Himura-san," he said politely. Someone had taught him to mind his manners, even if he couldn't remember who.

"That's all right. I'm sure this is all very new to you." Himura didn't know how right she was. "Have you ever had any ninja training?"

Yuki started to reply, then paused. If he remembered asking someone to train shuriken with him, then obviously he must have had at least a little training, but he couldn't remember any of that training, so did it even count?

_You haven't had any training,_ one of the voices prompted, relieving Yuki of his mounting confusion. "No," he said.

Himura nodded, seemingly having expected that answer. "Then you and Akiko will start in the first form. I need you to sign this for me, okay?" she continued, pushing a piece of paper with a lot of writing on it across the desk and pointing to a line at the bottom. "You can write your name, right?"

Yuki picked up a pencil, then paused with the point over the line, feeling horribly stupid as he tried to think of the symbols he was supposed to write. Finally, as if someone else were making his hand move, he wrote what he recognized as the character for 'Yuki'. The lines were a little shaky, but readable, and if Himura thought there was something wrong she didn't let it show.

"The other children are just getting back to class after lunch," Himura said, standing up. "I'll show you two where the classroom is. Thank you so much for bringing them, Fukui-san."

Yoshiko nodded before leaving. Yuki wished she wouldn't go, he knew her better than almost anything else right now.

Himura took Akiko's hand, and reached out for Yuki's. He didn't really want to hold hands with anyone again, but reluctantly took Himura's hand anyway so as not to appear different.

When they left the room, Setsuki wasn't sitting on the bench outside. She had probably gone to whatever class she was in. Yuki almost wished she was still there; even though she hadn't even spoken to him she had been as close to familiar as anything was, now.

The walls of the corridor Himura led them through were covered with wood panels, as the office had been. After a few minutes, Himura stopped at a door and let go of Yuki's hand.

"Here we are," she said, sounding overly cheerful as she shoved the heavy door open. "You two go in and sit in the front near the teacher, okay? Class has been going on for a few weeks but I'm sure you'll catch up soon."

With that, she ushered the two children through the door and left, the heavy door slamming behind her.

Yuki stood in the doorway for a while, staring around the room full of children. Lunch had only just ended, so most of the children were clustered in little groups, chattering. A lot of them turned to stare at the newcomers and Yuki tried not to show how uneasy he felt.

Akiko, for all her outgoing nature, clearly wasn't feeling very comfortable either, as she edged behind Yuki and tentatively took his hand. Yuki was getting very tired of having to hold hands with people, but at least Akiko wasn't trying to pull him anywhere so he squeezed her hand gently and led her to the front of the large classroom. It was set up in an amphitheater shape, so they had to go down a few stairs.

Akiko had just sat down behind one of the worn wooden desks, and Yuki was about to sit next to her when he sensed someone standing right behind him. He turned and found himself staring at a pair of sea-green eyes set in a pale, impassive face.

[A/N: At some point I need to adjust the prologue so it matches better with the chapters, since they were written several months apart. I'm beginning to think that I like the 'let's-screw-with-Sasuke' game almost as much as the 'let's-screw-with-Itachi' game, dear oh dear…]


	4. Chapter 3

[A/N: To give you an idea of how much I'm winging it here, the story was originally supposed to cut straight to the Chuunin Exams after the prologue. This is really fun, though.]

Chapter 3:

_Stay away from him!_ both of the voices suddenly ordered, so forcefully that Yuki actually took a shaky step back.

In the silence that abruptly fell over the rest of the class, Yuki could hear Akiko give a sharp, frightened gasp behind him. The other boy didn't seem to notice. "What is your name?" he asked, taking a step forward so that he and Yuki were only inches apart.

Since he had the desk behind him, Yuki couldn't back up any farther. "Yuki," he answered, studying the other boy to try and figure out why the voices didn't like him. The boy had red hair, and strange dark rings around his flat green eyes. What caught Yuki's gaze most was that the other boy didn't have any eyebrows, and there was a symbol on his forehead that seemed to have been burned in.

"Yuki," the other boy repeated with a somehow off half-smile. "Interesting," he said quietly, his head tilted to one side as he stared into Yuki's eyes.

_Get away,_ said the voices. _Get away get away. He will hurt you._

Yuki winced as their intensity began to make his head ache. He wanted to obey the voices, and honestly there was something about this boy that set him on edge even if the voices hadn't been warning him. Still, he was hardly the one in control here, and if the other boy didn't step back he wouldn't be able to get away from him.

"Gaara-kun…" a girl's voice called timidly, a few desks away. "Come away, class is about to start."

The boy (Gaara, apparently) glared in that direction but walked over and sat down anyway. Yuki looked over to see a girl a couple of years older than Gaara and himself, with sunny blond hair tied in four fluffy buns. She glanced over and gave him an apologetic smile, and her mossy green eyes met his.

Yuki thought she was beautiful.

"Who was that boy?" he asked Akiko once he had sat down behind his desk. The wooden surface was worn and chipped, and had faded messages scratched, carved and scribbled onto it from students past.

Akiko jumped, as if she was coming out of a trance. "W-what?" This scared attitude wasn't like her, and Yuki didn't like it. She was supposed to be happy.

"That boy who spoke to me. Why was everyone afraid of him?"

"Oh." Akiko took a few deep breaths, slowly seeming to come back to normal. "Um, that's Gaara. He's _really_ dangerous, all the kids are scared of him, I don't know why he's just in the first form class…Once," she continued, "a few of us kids were playing in the street, and we ran into him, and he tried to _kill_ us! I didn't do anything, I just hit him with my ball on accident! And, and people say he's a _monster_," she finished, leaning over to whisper the words right into Yuki's ear. "But don't tell anybody that, it's supposed to be a secret."

Yuki nodded but did not reply as at that moment the teacher entered the room and called for silence. Yuki mostly tuned her out as she called roll, although he did note that the sunshiny girl was named Temari and that she was apparently Gaara's sister.

"…And now for our two new students. Wakahisa Akiko?"

"Here!" Akiko chirped, as if she hadn't been so frightened just a few minutes ago.

"And…Yuki."

"Here," Yuki answered, wishing again that he knew his full name, like all the other children did.

…

While he tried to pay attention for the rest of the day, Yuki didn't understand much of what the teacher said. Even though it was clear that the class was still covering the basics, the school year had gone on long enough that all of the children were supposed to know the big words—and of course, Yuki didn't. Gaara's disconcerting stares from across the classroom didn't help his concentration any, either.

Finally, the interminably boring lesson was over. The teacher (Yuki still didn't know her name, due to how late he had arrived) told them all to read the next lesson in the textbook before dismissing them. Akiko snatched up her textbook and headed for the aisle with Yuki close behind. He wasn't quite sure how to get back to the orphanage from the Academy, and he didn't think Akiko really knew either. Hopefully Yoshiko would come to pick them up or Setsuki would wait for them before heading home herself.

As he tried to get around the clusters of noisy children, Yuki found himself separated from his companion. "Akiko?" he called, pushing his way towards the back of the room and the exit. "Wait up!"

He saw a glimpse of brown pigtails with gold ties before the door closed; Akiko didn't seem to have noticed yet that Yuki wasn't right behind her. Pushing around the last few groups of his classmates, Yuki shoved the door open with difficulty (it wasn't that it was too heavy, he just wasn't tall enough to get a good angle to push it from) and stepped into the corridor.

Akiko wasn't there. Yuki hurried along the hall to see if she had merely gotten out of sight, but ran right into another child as he rounded a corner. "Oh, sorry…" he said quickly before trailing off as he recognized who it was.

Gaara said nothing, but his unblinking eyes bored into Yuki's. When Yuki tried to edge around him, he found himself pulled back by a tendril of sand around one wrist. Pulling against it did nothing but make the hard granules scratch his skin.

There were dozens of other children in the crowded hallway, but none of them did anything or even seemed to notice, merely walking around the two as if nothing was out of the ordinary. A few glanced at them briefly, but were clearly too frightened of Gaara to do more than that. There were no adults in sight.

"What do you want?" Yuki asked, tugging on the sand again and noting that it was flowing from a gourd of some kind that Gaara wore on his back. The voices wouldn't advise him on what he was to do now, so Yuki was on his own.

Gaara suddenly smiled, which Yuki found even more disturbing, if that were possible. "We are going to be friends," he announced. It was clearly not a request.

"Friends?" Yuki said, bewildered. Even if there was something wrong with his head, he knew friends didn't usually act like this.

Gaara nodded. "Did _they_ tell you anything about me?"

Yuki stared blankly. Did Gaara mean Akiko? She had told him what she knew about Gaara, but he wasn't about to tell on her, Gaara might hurt her. But Gaara had said _them_—did he know about the voices?

"Mine told me to be friends with you," Gaara continued, turning and walking down the corridor. He did not release the sand that held Yuki, who was forced to walk beside him.

Yuki was shaken by this new revalation. Clearly, he was not the only one here who had voices telling him what to do. But from what Akiko said and what Yuki had seen, everyone was frightened of Gaara and thought he was a monster. Did that mean that Yuki would become like that too? Akiko wasn't afraid of him, not yet, and Yuki didn't want her to be.

As Gaara led him through the hallway, Yuki saw Akiko and Setsuki by one of the doors. He looked over to them, hoping they might be able to help, but Setsuki turned away and pulled Akiko along with her.

The voices still remained stubbornly silent, and Yuki started to wonder if Gaara could tell him what to do about it when the voices wouldn't say anything.

Finally, Gaara pushed open a door, and Yuki winced at the bright sunlight, briefly shielding his eyes with his free hand as Gaara pulled him over to where Temari and another boy were standing.

"There you are, Gaara-kun!" Temari said, sounding pleased although Yuki could see apprehension in her eyes. "You just took off after class; we were wondering where you were."

Gaara didn't respond to Temari's statement, even though it was clear that she desired an answer. "This is Yuki," he said. "We are going to be friends."

[A/N: Sorry for the recent lack of updates on everything. I'm studying Japanese and took a brief break from fanfic to get some more intensive work in. This is kind of short, but I wanted to get the plot going so it worked best to cut here.]


End file.
